Painted Journey
by Pounce the Cat
Summary: Harry goes on a journey inside the paintings. See what happens. Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter


**A/N: Ok, so I went to Whimsic Alley in Los Angeles for my birthday, and I got a whole load of Harry Potter stuff! It was totally awesome! XD A Very Potter Musical quote! Anyways, back to what I was saying… er, typing. One of the things I bought was a book of spells and I decided that I wanted to write a one-shot on one of the spells. It's the Self-Placement in Picture spell. I want reviews! I might do more one-shots on this, but it depends on how many people read this and actually review.**

**On with the story!**

Walking down the hall, Harry stopped as he looked at the paintings. His mind flashed to the spell book he was reading the other night. He remembered reading about this spell to place yourself in paintings. What did the book say? Oh, yeah; he was going to need a Unicorn tail hair, a wolf's tooth and dragon spit.

This was going to be fun. Can you sense the sarcasm?

Two hours later, Harry walked down the corridor, looking over his shoulder. He had just stolen from Snape. He stopped and wondered where on earth he was going to do this. His mind flashed to the Room of Requirement and he slapped his forehead in exasperation. He could have asked the room for these ingredients! _Moron,_ he thought to himself and speedily made his way to the Room of Requirement.

Once inside, he plopped onto the couch he wished for and set up what he needed to make the potion. He wished for a painting that would connect to outside of this room and he began mixing the ingredients into the cauldron. He stirred it briskly and said, "Piceye," three times.

Suddenly, he felt himself flatten and shrink before flying towards the painting he wished for. It was a picture of a park with a swing and some trees and flowers. As he left, the light of the fire reflected on a sentence in his spell book.

_Caution: Since there isn't any sense of passage of time in the painted world, you may stay longer than you realize; perhaps hours or days._ **(1)**

Poor Harry never read through the whole explanation of this spell. With his luck, he'll be missing for a month.

Inside the painting, Harry moved his arm in shock. He looked weird and he felt weird too. He shook his head and looked around the painting.

He looked around and spotted a bright portal. His curiosity got the better of him and he walked through it to find himself in a new painting. He looked out of the painting to see that he was just outside the Room of Requirement.

"Cool!" He said, excitedly and looked around the portrait. It was empty except for a chair and a book case in the background. Its inhabitant must be visiting another portrait. He moved onto the next portrait to the next until he found himself in a portrait with someone else in there.

It was a woman with black hair in a bun and sharp, blue eyes. She wore a long dark blue dress with silver hems. She looked surprised.

"You're Harry Potter! What are you doing in the portraits?" She asked him, bewildered.

Harry knew this was going to happen, but he still wasn't sure how to answer. "Umm… I… Er…"

"Spit it out!" She said impatiently and put a hand on her hip.

"Fine," he said and decided to tell the truth. "I cast the Self-placement in portrait spell," he told her, wondering if she was going to tell one of the professors. He wasn't sure if what he was doing was allowed.

The woman looked confused, but she shrugged and went back to the book she was reading. Harry was about to leave to the next portrait when the woman spoke up again.

"Hey, do you think you could find me a book to read? This is the only book I have and I'm getting sick of reading it over and over again. I heard that Gary has Hamlet. Just keep heading the way you are now. He's in a cave painting."

Harry looked over his shoulder and nodded. "Sure." With that said, he left the portrait in search of the cave painting. _Who's Gary and why does he live in a cave? _Harry thought to himself.

After about five minutes of walking, he came upon a cave painting with a dragon curled up on top of numerous treasures. This _was Gary? _Harry thought before clearing his throat. He hoped Gary wasn't mean.

The dragon opened a yellow eye and lifted its head. The dragon made some kind of noise and Harry gulped. "Who dares wake me from my slumber?" The dragon's voice was deep and dangerous.

"Um, a woman asked me to ask you for a book called Hamlet…" He said uncertainly. Sweat was dripping down his face.

The dragon looked ready to attack him when he froze and regarded Harry a second time. "There's this knight -as he calls himself- that has been bothering me for quite some time now. If you were to convince him to quit bothering me then I will grant you the book," he said after a minute. Harry let loose the breath he had been holding. _He's not going to kill me,_ he thought to himself.

"I will try my hardest… Gary," Harry said uncertainly. Gary wasn't a very…dragon-like name. The dragon glared at him and he gulped. "I'm sorry, it's a great name! I just wasn't expecting your name to be…" Harry trailed off. He shook his head. "What's the knight's name? And where is he?"

"He goes by Sir Cadogan…" Harry groaned here. "Ah, I see you've met him. So you know where he is? Sort of? Well, just keep going forwards; you'll get to him eventually." Gary's voice actually sounded amused. Harry nodded and continued his journey, questioning why he chose to do this.

He met some strange individuals on his way to Sir Cadogan. There was a Giraffe that he passed. He had almost gotten stepped on, but he made it. An old woman had told him that he should try to use a brush once in a while and then she grumbled about how teenagers had no self-respect. Harry tried to tell her that brushing doesn't work, but she just lectured about how teenagers these days are so lazy. She stopped her lecture when a squeaky toy came bouncing into the room. Harry and the old woman stared at the toy in confusion. They both lifted their heads when they heard barking. A giant St. Bernard bounded into the room, dragging some poor kid. The kid –Harry didn't know if it was a boy or a girl as it was just a blur- rammed into the old lady and he used that distraction to escape. Normally, Harry would try to help, but he didn't want to be stuck being lectured by that woman again.

Harry vowed to himself to never experiment like this again.

Finally, after a while, he reached Sir Cadogan's painting.

"Halt, you knave! You cowardly cur! **(A/N: I have no idea what a 'knave' or a 'cur' is, so if this makes no sense whatsoever, just assume Cadogan is insane or something XD)**" The knight ran at him with his sword, and Harry dodged to the side.

"Sir Cadogan!" Harry yelled, trying to get the 'Knight's' attention. His response was to run at him again. Harry stepped to the side, squatted and swung his leg out, tripping Sir Cadogan. He fell forwards and the visor on his helmet swung down over his eyes. He groaned, and Harry took a breather.

"Sir Cadogan, I'm here on behalf of Gary the Dragon!" Harry said, hoping that the 'knight' would listen.

"What does that beast want?" Cadogan said, moving to sit on the well-painted grass of the portrait. "Dragons are foul creatures of destruction, and I, Sir Cadogan, must stop him!" Sir Cadogan moved to stand up, but what Harry said next made him stop.

"What has that dragon done exactly?"

"Well… He's a dragon! He's bound to destroy something eventually…" Sir Cadogan didn't seem quite so…passionate as before.

"Well, how about you leave him alone unless he decides to go on a rampage?" Harry suggested. Sir Cadogan thought for a moment, before nodding.

"However, tell that beast that I'll be watching him carefully, though!" The knight said before standing up and continuing his sword practice.

"Will do, sir!" Harry said with a relieved smile as he walked back the way he came. When he came to the portrait of the grumpy old lady, he just ran right through.

"Well, the nerve of that boy…" was grumbled as he sped off towards Gary's cave.

He skidded to a halt as he entered the ominous cave.

"Have you done it?" The dragon's deep, gravelly voice echoed through the cave.

"Yeah…I did it," Harry said, panting. "He's agreed to leave you alone, but he said he'll be watching you closely." The dragon gave out a snort.

"Well, I think you've done the impossible, boy," the dragon said. His voice was full of amusement. "And for that, here's the book." The dragon lifted his tail and grabbed a book before throwing it to Harry.

"Thank you, Gary," Harry said, bowing low. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to do that, but he figured it wouldn't hurt. He ran out of there and zoomed through many portraits before he finally made it to the one with the lady.

"Did you find the book?" She asked him from the chair she was sitting in.

"Yeah," Harry said after he caught his breath. He handed her the book and she smiled widely.

"Thank you, Mr. Potter," she said.

"You're welcome, Miss…" Harry trailed off.

"My name is Rowena Ravenclaw," she said, smiling as Harry stared at her in shock.

"Thank you, Mrs. Ravenclaw!" He was still quite shocked but he raised his wand and said, "Reverto!" Suddenly, he was back in the Room of Requirement, laying on his back staring at the ceiling.

"I'm back," he murmured, looking at his hands. He stood up and ran out of the room to tell his friends. He was in a corridor on his way to Gryffindor tower when he turned a corner and ran right into two people.

He fell on his butt with an "Oof!" Looking up, he yelled, "Ron! Hermione!"

"Harry! Where have you been?" Hermione asked, looking at him in shock.

"You've been gone for two weeks, mate!" Ron said, helping Harry up.

"What do you mean? It's only been thirty minutes or so…" Harry said, looking at them in confusion.

"Harry, my boy!" A voice called from behind them. Harry looked past his friends to see Dumbledore, Snape and McGonagall striding towards them. Snape had his usual scowl on his face, McGonagall's lips were pursed tightly, and Dumbledore looked relieved. "Where have you been, my boy? We've been looking everywhere for you."

"Well, it's an interesting story…"

**A/N: I hope you liked it! It took me forever to write, and I'm already close to my next birthday. Actually, I think it was two years ago when I started this… Oops. But I worked hard on it. I forgot about it a couple times. That's why it took me so long. Review, please?**


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